


Testing, Testing

by noo



Category: Almost Human
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Loss of Limbs, Self-Harm, past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-23
Updated: 2013-10-23
Packaged: 2017-12-30 05:58:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1014955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noo/pseuds/noo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A moment of anger he was normally so good at controlling, and the knife in his hand was, well...it was stupid. He didn’t know where his brain went, but his hand seemed to move on its own and there was the knife.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Testing, Testing

**Author's Note:**

> Be warned that I have seen the pilot episode, and there are slight references in here to information gleaned from there. If you want to remain very spoiler free, do not read.
> 
> This was inspired by the scene from the promos of Kennex stabbing himself in the leg. Damn you gif makers and damn you Karl Urban for that performance! It got me thinking about how Kennex knew to do that, so this is a little head canon possibility.
> 
> Many thanks to [champagneislife](http://champagneislife.tumblr.com/) for the workshopping of the ideas and the wonderful [DianaMoon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/DianaMoon/pseuds/DianaMoon) for the beta work to make this worthy of being posted.

John stared down at the knife handle. The plain dull wood in stark contrast to the shine of the synthetic where his leg used to be. His rear hurt from where he had landed on the floor, hard, but what didn’t hurt, where there was no pain, was this other leg.

It was bullshit.

Those that talked about the phantom pain of missing limbs, well, why the hell didn’t his phantom leg hurt? There was a knife, a fucking butter knife of all things, sticking into that leg. That didn’t hurt either. He looked closer at the entry wound.

Was it really a wound when there was no blood, no flesh? Right there in the middle of the thigh section. Right there he had managed to find the exact spot to miss some circuitry, receptors, or something. No sparks. No pain. No feeling. Nothing. Fucking nothing, except the smallest of holes around the blade of the knife.

He dropped his head, eyes closing. He knew, academically, that the leg was there, but there was nothing to feel. Nothing.

It was that nothing that had caught him unaware. The nothing of a warning as that leg failed and he fell. The crash of the plate hitting the floor, his toast flying off god knew where, and that fucking annoying voice telling him the calibration had failed. Well, guess what disembodied female voice? He fucking figured that out for himself when he landed hard on his ass on his kitchen floor because of that leg he never asked to have.

A moment of anger he was normally so good at controlling, and the knife in his hand was, well...it was stupid. He didn’t know where his brain went, but his hand seemed to move on its own and there was the knife.

Weirdly, he’d had the instinct to stab into a fleshy part of the thigh, avoiding any major damage. The techs had rattled on about the details of the leg when he was in the hospital. At the time he had just nodded as if he was actually listening, wanting more to just get it over with and out of there. He had remembered them talking about how it was based on a real human leg, though. All the bits in all the right places. The techs had pointed out the receptors on the projection, saying he would feel a kind of pain, but he felt nothing. That projection of the leg they had geeked out over, reminding him of Lom.

Early morning light was still there when he opened his eyes again. Way too early for his liking, but he wasn’t going to lie in that bed for any longer than he’d have to.

Two years lost lying in a bed, even if he couldn’t remember it all, or most of it.

Too many nightmares now waiting for him when he finally slept. Nightmares about nothing. Nightmares about the blank spaces. No one to share the bed with him. No warmth next to him. No wandering hands mapping out favorite places.

If Anna was here, like many times over breakfast...Anna would have smiled at him, cajoled him out of his funk, and laughed at him for falling over. She would have been sitting at the bench, cup of coffee in her hand, and that morning light creating a halo around her. He loved those moments in the morning with her and the time to lazily just look at her, at her slightly shy, morning smile on her lips, and her dark, gorgeous eyes smiling fuller back at him. How he had gotten that lucky to have that woman in his life, he never quite understood.

But Anna was gone, just like his leg. He had an explanation for his leg. It had gone ‘boom’. Anna, of Anna there was nothing. No reason, just gone.

Fuck. He needed to pull it out. He had to shower; he had to meet with Tilden again today. Time for that shrink to prod into his psyche some more. Fuck that. He knew how to play those assholes. Thinking they knew better about what makes a good cop. His father knew best.

_“Get up, John. Don’t just sit there on your ass. No one is going to do it for you. Life is about getting up again.”_

He would have to go see those techs again. Get the damage repaired.

_“Oh sorry, I fell and the knife slipped in my hand.”_

At least they weren’t cops. They wouldn’t be able to see through that bullshit. If the techs did, well, what were they going to do? They liked that leg too much.

He had his hand on the knife handle once more...he didn’t want to pull it out. He had to. No way would his pants fit over it. A tenting in his pants was not a problem, he’d had to deal with that since his teenage years, but he’d never had a tenting at the side of his thigh. Tilden would have a field day if he left it in there.

Just for good measure he added in a little twist of the knife before he pulled it out. It came out too easy. He had braced to feel something, but there was nothing.

Just that hole, the perfect little slit made by the dull blade. He looked at the knife again, at the hole and thought about the lack of feeling. Nothing, not a damn thing.

He had found the spot where there hadn’t been receptors. He pushed the knife at the knee joint. He felt that a little zing of a feeling which made him clench his muscles. He felt that.

He tried on his actual leg. Same place, but not as hard. The dull blade didn’t even break the skin, but he felt it. He watched it push against the flesh, and that was all, but he felt no breaking of the skin.

The knife clanked as it hit the bench leg where he threw it.

Oh well. At least he now had a party trick.


End file.
